Highways and Byways in LincolnshireRawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
History
Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire
Rawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
Lincolnshire (England) -- Description and travel
_Harpswell_ in its Early Norman, or possibly pre-Norman, tower has a
mid-wall shaft carved with chevron ornament, similar to that in the upper
of two sets of early double lights on the south side of the tower of
Appleton-le-Strey near Malton in Yorkshire. It also possesses a clock
which was given in memory of the victory at Culloden, 1746. Moreover it
contains several fine monuments; but _Glentworth_ and _Fillingham_ are
of more interest than all these. _Glentworth_, for its very interesting
church, and _Fillingham_, because from 1361 to 1368 it was the home of
the great John Wyclif, who held the living as a ‘fellow’ of Balliol
College, Oxford.
[Sidenote: WYCLIF]
Wyclif was made Master of Balliol in 1360, and became rector of
Fillingham in the same year. In 1368 he moved to Ludgershall in Bucks,
and in 1374 to Lutterworth, where he died on December 31, 1384. He was a
consistent opposer of the doctrine of transubstantiation, for which he
was condemned by the University of Oxford; and he renounced allegiance to
the Pope, who issued no less than five Bulls against him. The Archbishop
of Canterbury persecuted him in his latter years, and forty-four years
after his death his bones were exhumed and burnt by order of the Synod of
Constance, and the ashes cast into the Swift. He made the first complete
translation of the Bible into English from the Vulgate, and in this he
was assisted by Nicolas of Hereford, who took the Old Testament, Wyclif
doing the New. Chaucer, who died in 1400, thus describes him in his
Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales”:—
A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a poure Persoun of a toun;
But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk
That Christes gospel trewly wolde preche.
Wide was his parische, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne lefte not for reyne ne thonder,
In sicknesse nor in mischiefe to visite
The ferrest in his parische, muche and lite,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf.
This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf,
That first he wrought and afterward be taughte.
Out of the Gospel he the wordes caughte
And this figure he added eek thereto,
That if golde ruste, what shal iren do?
A better preest, I trowe, ther nowher non is,
He wayted after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience,
But Christes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folowed it himselve.
[Sidenote: SIR CHRISTOPHER WRAY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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